


Strawberry Evanescence

by JohnlockAndATardis



Series: Ivory Shadows - Universe [3]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 22:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10603989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnlockAndATardis/pseuds/JohnlockAndATardis
Summary: A familiar figure from Alex's past reappears in impossible circumstances with a cryptic message.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This particular part of the series is meant to be understood as falling around (and most certainly before) 1x12.

     Alexandra Reagan is in her small, _a-cubicle-would-be-bigger-Nic_ office at the studio, thumb running against the smooth ridges of the carved white figure in her hand when a knock raps at the door. It is an unfamiliar pattern of taps, short and punctuated against the yellow frame. Anticipating perhaps one of the new interns she and Nic had hired she raises her head lazily, settling the ivory figurine gently down beside her atop the velvet bag she'd procured for it.

     "Come in," she calls out that gentle, docile tone which signals peace within her. The tone that makes people fall for her, feel at ease with her, or so she had been told. But what we're a lover's words worth when they vanished in the daylight like smoke and her one night stands always did? Only nicotine scars.

     Slowly, the door creaked open, reminding Alex that she needed to have oiled the hinge. It was an old building, after all. But the thoughts of structural improvements faded out of her mind the moment that the figure at the doorway swept in, looking familiar no more than twenty five, two conjectures which were distinctly a-harmonious. Alex blinks, once, twice, a lucky third, trying to clear her vision but it does her no good. Strand would say, if he could hear her thoughts, that her mind was ascribing new data to an old memory, creating a familiar face out of one belonging to a stranger. That is, he would say that if he could get all the words out before she kicked him from the office. Because just as she had known her father's voice, she knew this face. Having seen it only once before made no difference now, with the sense of certainty that rang through her, desperately human.

    "Alexandra." The woman smiles, all strawberry lips and glittering green eyes, tumbles of red hair untouched by age as they cascade down her back, framing rosy cheeks. "My look how much you've grown young one; I thought you would be pretty. It seems that I was right." Her emerald gaze falls upon the desk, to the object that had only just vacated the journalist's hand. "I see you found my gift." Her tongue runs thoughtfully over her lip, like a snake testing the air about her. "I thought it was time old relics were returned - nothing is ever the same once it's known a warm touch."

     Alex's mind is reeling, she doesn't understand. The last few weeks have held puzzles that seem impossible to refute and even more so to ignore - first, this figurine and then the night with Strand, the one he won't admit to, the one he swears was a hallucination. Her brows furrow, nose scrunching in frustration. The woman across from her tuts.

     "Now, none of that frowning, you'll get wrinkles," she teases gently, crossing the floor in an instant -truly, it is a small office. Her hand is gentle where it touches Alex's, and then the woman is seated before her, though the podcast host is certain there hadn't been a chair there a moment ago.

     "You look puzzled, Alexandra. Don't be. Everything falls into place soon enough, just as it is supposed to." She smiles, her hand still holding Alex's and it is hot and it feels like it could scorch a fire through her bones if the other wanted. She remembers being a little girl in the museum, seeing Holly for the first time and how instantly drawn to her she had been, moth to a flame as far as the proverbial metaphor went.

    Alex doesn't understand. She's a journalist: understanding is what she is meant to do. But the last few weeks, and even the months before it, have seemed to existed outside of the realm of her understanding. She frowns, teeth working at her lip, now conscious of the way that the space between her eyes grows worry-lines. Holly sits back, fingers a slow, electric drag down Alex's wrist, along her leg to rest at her knee. She is lax, calm. In power.

     "How?" It falls off of her tongue and she struggles for words in a place where there are none. Questions usually come easy for her, she's been doing this job since even before college, writing a newspaper column in middle school when she wore braces and a Blue Jays cap. The Blue Jays were her father's favorite. That cap had been old, and too many sizes to big, but always too small a piece of him. Now, here, with something even more tangible, she still feels out of her element, out of place in the office she has called her own for years. Alex swallows, wishing she had coffee or water or something to occupy her mouth with so she could find time to find the words she needs. Instead, the thought spills out of her like water in an overflowing stream.

     "How're you here, I don't understand how do you look this way, _howisanyofthispossible?"_ The words come out a babbling, incoherent mess but Holly only laughs, her smile genuine, her presence a gentle, babbling brook and Alex feels the calm as much as she is overwhelmed.

     "There is much yet you have to learn, young one." A press of a thumb, gentle as it sweeps across her jeans, the way that Holly braces herself to look at Alex and Alex feels naked. It isn't just clothing that seems gone from her - it is skin and sinew and muscle and bone ripped painlessly away and she is bare, her mind and her heart and her soul on full display like an exhibit at a museum.

     "You've found the Brothers, I see. And the Order. Quick work, I always knew you would do well."

     "I don't understand." And Alex is frowning now and Holly is laughing in this gentle sort of form that leaves the journalist wondering if she is being mocked or not.

     "They never do," Holly answers, and there is something devilish to her. She slides closer, her hand slips up as their eyes lock, as though Alex is being asked a question she can't yet decipher. She feels herself drowning, a child again, water sucking her down, down, down, and she can't breathe and her lungs are threatening to burst and-

     The door swings open. Richard Strand is standing there, a carry-container with two diagonal cardboard cups in his hand. She knows the rich earthen smoke of her own house blend coffee, but not the red that paints his face.

"My apologies Ms. Reagan," Strand nearly growls, as if he can't control it himself. He frowns, readjusts himself, she can see his uncertainty and the calculation which comes with it. "I can see that I am interrupting."

     And Alex remembers that hand, and she realizes it, pressed nearly against the seam of her jeans and she swallows so hard it hurts. Her face is a fire engine hue and she can't look at him or at Holly, though nothing has happened, nothing will happen, he doesn't understand.

     "Richard, no-"

    But he is already out the door, and a pair of lips are at her forehead like a pagan's charm completed.

    _"Be safe, Alexandra Reagan."_

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to the wonderful @strandrichard of tumblr dot com fame.


End file.
